U.S. researchers have discovered a real stupidity virus, that has been lingering on green algae in lakes and rivers. While researchers didn’t know that the stupidity virus called ATCV-1 could infect humans, scientists have found that it can and it causes a lot of damage, to say the least. The stupidity virus infect the human brain and it can impair cognitive functions, memory and learning ability.
U.S. researchers said this was the first time they could inspect the effects of the stupidity virus on humans and study leader Robert Yolken said that they discovered these effects by accident. The scientists were researching unrelated microbes found in human throats. Robert Yolken is a virologist at Johns Hopkins Medical School in Maryland and he said that throat swabs from participants of the study showed abnormal presence of the ATCV-1 virus, now called the stupidity virus. These traces were found in the DNA of the subjects and these participants scored 10% below the average on various cognitive tests.
According to the research, the stupidity virus made people less attentive, decreased visual processing and visual motor speed. The study found that the virus was mainly located in freshwater, but they couldn’t demonstrate that all the subjects with symptoms of the virus had come in contact with rivers or lakes. According to Yulken, “these are agents that we carry around for a long time and that may have subtle effects on our cognition and behavior, We’re really just starting to find out what some of these agents that we’re carrying around might actually do.”
The scientists also declared that they had performed similar cognitive tests on mice infected with the stupidity virus and their results corroborated the initial findings of the first study. While the damage the ACTV-1 virus does isn’t huge, it is worrisome. The mice infected with the green algae carrying the stupidity virus were slower to find the exit of mazes and were 20% less interested in their surroundings than uninfected mice. While this is no joke, we could say that maybe green algae and the stupidity virus it carries might ring on the zombie apocalypse. The researchers didn’t say how extended the infection is or how it could be transmitted, but they hinted at the fact that they have a long incubation and can be carried around in the genes.